South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday defended his martial law decree as an act of governance and denied rebellion charges, vowing to “fight to the end” in the face of attempts to impeach him and intensifying investigations into last week’s move.
Yoon’s statement came hours before the main opposition Democratic Party submitted a new impeachment motion against him for a floor vote this weekend.
Parliament yesterday afternoon passed motions to impeach national police chief Cho Ji-h and South Korean Minister of Justice Park Sung-jae, suspending them from official duties, over their enforcement of martial law.
Photo: Bloomberg
Yoon’s Dec. 3 martial law declaration has generated political chaos and large protests calling for his ouster. The decree brought hundreds of armed troops attempting to encircle parliament and raiding the election commission, although no major violence or injuries occurred.
Martial law lasted only six hours as Yoon was forced to lift it after the South Korean National Assembly unanimously voted it down.
Yoon said he enacted martial law as a warning to the Democratic Party, which controls parliament.
He called the party “a monster” and “anti-state forces” that tried to use its legislative muscle to impeach top officials, undermined the government’s budget bill for next year and sympathized with North Korea.
“I will fight to the end to prevent the forces and criminal groups that have been responsible for paralyzing the country’s government and disrupting the nation’s constitutional order from threatening the future of the Republic of Korea,” Yoon said, referring to the South by its official name.
“The opposition is now doing a sword dance of chaos, claiming that the declaration of martial law constitutes to an act of rebellion, but was it really?” he said.
Yoon said martial law was an act of governance that cannot be the subject of investigations and does not amount to rebellion.
The deployment of nearly 300 soldiers to the National Assembly was designed to maintain order, not dissolve or paralyze it, he said.
The Democratic Party said that Yoon’s statement was “an expression of extreme delusion” and “a declaration of war against the people.”
Kim Min-seok, head of a party task force, accused the president of attempting to incite pro-Yoon riots.
The Democratic Party would focus on getting the motion impeaching Yoon passed tomorrow, Kim said.
It was unclear how Yoon’s comments would affect his fate. The Democratic Party and smaller opposition parties hold 192 seats combined, eight votes short of a two-thirds majority, or 200 of the 300 lawmakers, in the National Assembly.
The earlier attempt to impeach Yoon failed with most lawmakers from Yoon’s governing People Power Party (PPP) boycotting the vote.
Yoon’s speech was expected to deepen a divide inside the PPP.
When PPP Chair Han Dong-hun, a critic of Yoon, called Yoon’s statement “a confession of rebellion” during a party meeting, Yoon loyalists jeered and called on Han to stop speaking.
Han has urged party members to vote in favor of Yoon’s impeachment.
Opposition parties and even some PPP members said that the martial law decree was unconstitutional.
They said that South Korean law allows the president to declare martial law only during wartime or similar emergencies.
Deploying troops to seal the National Assembly to suspend its political activities amounted to rebellion because the constitution does not give a president such rights in any situation, they said.
The country’s law enforcement authorities are investigating whether Yoon and others involved in imposing martial law committed rebellion, abuse of power and other crimes.
A conviction for rebellion carries a maximum penalty of death.
The National Assembly yesterday passed a bill that could introduce an independent counsel to investigate Yoon on rebellion charges without his approval.
A bill it endorsed earlier this week on appointing an independent counsel requires Yoon’s approval.
The South Korean Ministry of Justice on Monday placed an overseas travel ban on Yoon.
South Korean law gives presidents immunity from prosecution while in office, except for allegations of rebellion or treason.
On Wednesday, Yoon’s former defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, was arrested on allegations of playing a key role in a rebellion and committing abuse of power.
Cho and the head of Seoul’s metropolitan police have been detained while their actions of sending police forces to the National Assembly are investigated as a criminal matter.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
RSS